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Tuesday, May 6

Movies Review

My husband and I share the same interest; watching movies. It is the fastest therapy for tension releasing and some intimate-bonding.

Some of the movies we watch these past few days;

Lions For Lambs is a political drama that follows three storylines - Tom Cruise playing a Republican senator with Presidential ambitions sits down for an interview with a hard-nosed Washington journalist played by Meryl Streep.

In the next sub-plot, a political science professor at a California university, played by Robert Redford, has an inspiring chat with a promising but disillusioned student.

And in the third, two injured American soldiers, played by Derek Luke and Michael Pena, are trapped behind enemy lines in Afghanistan. Like more and more films following a similar format, in this one too, all three tracks are interwoven for a particular purpose.

But in the end, I think you'll find that the film loses steam because although it does raise a few important questions, it never does make any strong comment. Of course the film has an anti-war theme to it, but it's also too long, too verbose, and is much like a boring lecture at the end of the day.

Marvel's legendary Super Hero Iron Man Oscar nominee Robert Downey Jr. stars as Tony Stark/Iron Man in the story of a billionaire industrialist and genius inventor who is kidnapped and forced to build a devastating weapon. Instead, using his intelligence and ingenuity, Tony builds a high-tech suit of armor and escapes captivity.

When he uncovers a nefarious plot with global implications, he dons his powerful armor and vows to protect the world as Iron Man. Ambitious movie, the engineered-robotic scenes are similar to the Transformer movies. Still, this movie is ok to be watch esspecially by kids.

The body count gets very high very quickly (and keeps climbing) in Shoot ‘Em Up, and that’s just fine. From the first scene to the last, this ridiculously over-the-top, campy send-up of an action/adventure movie is a fun and frothy ride.

In writer/director Michael Davis’ first big Hollywood project, Smith begrudgingly comes to the aid of a pregnant woman being chased by armed goons who want to kill her baby. Smith delivers the child and coolly cuts the umbilical cord with the pull of a trigger — all in the midst of an intense shootout so ludicrous that you can’t help but laugh. Here’s the action hero of action heroes, the guy who never misses, never lets ‘em see him sweat and manages to deliver the pithy one-liners (“I’m a British nanny, and I’m dangerous.”) that will inevitably become part of film lore.

The mother’s death, from a bullet to the head, thrusts Smith into the role of “manny”; he has to keep the baby alive. It’s Three Men and a Baby, only with one man, much more testosterone and a gazillion guns and bullets. Belluci is the most beautiful thing in the movie. Too bad she’s a hooker who uses her motherly instincts for the kinky delights of the brothel patrons.

Gross.

Who are the goons and why do they want the baby dead? Well, that’s what passes for plot in Davis’ noir-y film. And that’s OK, too. You’re not supposed to think too deeply or care too much.You are supposed to be disgusted and delighted by Paul Giamatti’s sadistic and twisted turn as Hertz, the bad-guy, baby-killer boss. His task is to inadvertently help Smith fill body bags by bringing in more and more bad guys to take him down.

They fail, to miserable, deadly and hilarious effect. “Do we really suck or is this guy that good?” Hertz says following a particularly inventive video game-ish stairwell shootout, where our hero picks off the bad guys like ducks in a carnival game. Smith is just that good.

While the performances are pretty much just right (Giamatti’s Hertz is, at times, a tad too creepy), it’s the action sequences — fast-paced, original and utterly devoid of plausibility — that hold this movie together. One sequence in particular, a hot-and-heavy motel room scene, proves that you should never, ever interrupt Smith while he’s making love to a beautiful woman.

Shoot ‘Em Up is purposefully, cartoonishly violent (the blood packets alone must have cost a fortune), and so outlandish that it takes you past the point of believability. That’s what makes it fun. You actually laugh when the bad guys die, and can’t wait to see how Smith will kill someone next.

Shoot ‘Em Up starts and ends with guns a-blazing, and that’s just fine.

With the influence of my husband; I am too grow to like the violence and political supremacy offered by movies. At the end of it, you feel like you want to be able to have a gun and start being a hero.